Dear IAB & IAB Tech Lab Members,
Yesterday, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) and the IAB Technology Laboratory (IAB Tech Lab) hosted a briefing to alert the advertising community and provide intelligence about a major ad fraud threat to the digital advertising supply chain from a new ad fraud operation dubbed “Methbot”. White Ops estimates that this “bot farm”, controlled by individuals based in Russia and operating out of data centers in the United States and Netherlands, may cost the advertising community $3 to $5 million in fraudulent revenue per day by targeting premium video advertising impressions.
IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) co-created TAG, along with the 4As (the American Association of Advertising Agencies), and ANA (Association of National Advertisers) to help combat those types of ad fraud, malware, and piracy threats for the digital advertising industry. IAB and the IAB Tech Lab are working directly with TAG to help protect agencies, brands, ad platforms, and publishers against fraud.
Here are some concrete actions to fight Methbot
The TAG’s Certified Against Fraud Program also exists to combat fraudulent non-human traffic in the digital advertising supply chain. And TAG partnered with the IAB Tech Lab to provide a Data Center IP List tool to aid the digital advertising industry avoiding such threats.
- Methbot, The Fight, The Future
- Learn about TAG’s anti-fraud initiatives
- Download the white paper about Methbot by White Ops
- Download White Ops’ list of over 570,000 compromised IP addresses belonging to Methbot – for advertisers, agencies, and platforms to block
Alanna Gombert
SVP, Technology & Ad Operations, IAB
General Manager, IAB Tech Lab
Dave Grimaldi
Executive Vice President, Public Policy, IAB